How the new Motor Vehicles Aggregator Guidelines’ “light touch” approach sidesteps gig workers' interests | The Leaflet

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How the new Motor Vehicles Aggregator Guidelines’ “light touch” approach sidesteps gig workers' interests | The Leaflet

This trend of erasing transparency and accountability is carried on in issues of safety and dignity at work. On drivers’ safety, MVAG 2020’s Paragraph 10 (3) specifically addressed sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The elimination of this provision that explicitly required compliance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, in MVAG 2025 raises serious concerns—not just about the safety of women drivers, but also about the shrinking visibility of gender in regulatory thinking.

Then, there are the provisions that have been revised/reworked, invariably for the worse. Compare, for instance, the changes to the provision on insurance benefits. In MVAG 2020, Paragraphs 7(2)(a) and (b) fixed a clear standard: benefits were to be increased annually by 5 percent, tethered to the base year of 2020–21. MVAG 2025’s provisions on this instead hold that it “shall be increased each year by such percentage as notified by the Central Government” — replacing determinacy with discretion (Paragraphs 11.2 (i) and (ii)). The increase is now left to the Union government’s notification, thus rendering predictability, and thereby enforceability, weak at best. Can this quiet transfer of certainty to executive whimsy then be regarded as a technical change? When such entitlements become dependent on administrative will, they cease to function as rights.

The shift in fare regulation is perhaps the most glaring instance of the palpable, yet subtle, laissez-faire tilt. Under the 2020 regime, as per Paragraph 13(5), in States where a base fare was not determined, a default amount was expressly provided for. MVAG 2025 now hands this domain over to the aggregators themselves, who can now decide a base fare they deem fit, notify the same to the State Government, and proceed as if that were binding, until the State decides otherwise (at Paragraph 17.7). This is an inversion of the regulatory hierarchy. With only a little bargaining power available to the platform workers, this is a hostile and utter disregard to socioeconomic realities of the country, and the long jurisprudence on minimum wages.

To give full effect to the fundamental rights of the workers and ensure enforceability, other States, on the lines of the Karnataka law.

Other protections have also been pared down or made toothless. In the MVAG 2020, State governments had the authority to classify violations into three categories — minor, moderate, or gross (at Paragraph 16 (1) (d)). Based on this classification, they could suspend the aggregator’s license for a period ranging from a minimum of ten days to a maximum of six months (at Paragraph ¶16 (1)). Additionally, if an aggregator was found to be seriously non-compliant, the State could forfeit the security deposit that is required to be deposited by the aggregator during the time of obtaining their operating license (at Paragraph 16 (6)). These were procedural tools that envisioned meaningful accountability.

In contrast, Paragraph 24.2, MVAG 2025 truncates maximum suspension to three months, removes the minimum altogether, and erases the forfeiture clause. These changes significantly dilute the consequences aggregators may face for non-compliance. Fines are now standardized—between ₹1 lakh and ₹1 crore—strangely reducing the discretion within the domain of the State, even as it is expanded for aggregators (at Paragraph 24.4).

Timelines for hearings on license cancellation have also been extended—from two days in the MVAG 2020 (at Paragraph 17 (2)) to ten in the MVAG 2025 (at Paragraph 25.2)—adding a relaxation for aggregators. Furthermore, one notices from the above provision on cancellation of license that the MVAG 2025 introduces a fresh mandatory obligation on the competent authority, that is non-existent in the MVAG 2020: “bring such cancellation to the notice of other States and the Central Government” —an administrative flourish that does little for ground-level enforcement but certainly signals tighter state monitoring in favour of aggregators (at Paragraph 25.2).

The reduction in oversight powers of State governments is perhaps the most subtle yet sweeping alteration. MVAG 2020 explicitly allowed States to investigate off-boarding patterns of drivers and conduct search and inspection of aggregator premises. The power “to investigate about the Drivers who have been off-boarded at more than one instance” – under Paragraph 19(1) of MVAG 2020 ensures that there exists a check on arbitrary and discriminatory dismissals by the aggregators. Paragraph 19 (2) of MVAG 2020 further empowered State governments “to conduct search and investigation of the Aggregator’s premises, as specified in Form I of these Guidelines, for the effective implementation of these Guidelines.”

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MVAG 2025, however, discards these investigatory tools. While Paragraph 27.1 of the MVAG 2025 vaguely states that the information sought by State Governments may “include the power to conduct an inquiry into the aggregator”, this phrasing is far less clear and enforceable than the earlier explicit provisions. It lacks any reference to inspections or off-boarding patterns, making it uncertain whether such oversight can still be meaningfully exercised. Doing away with provision on concrete search and inspection is emblematic of the paradigm shift that the new labour codes set forth. This mirrors the broader legal and regulatory trend of centralizing economic governance, while disempowering the jurisdictions that interact most immediately with workers and users.

Conclusion

The objective of the MVAG, 2025 as stated in its Preamble is that it attempts to set up a “light-touch regulatory system”. It is clear that some minimum protections and provisions of good import for the drivers/gig workers, and detailed and strict provisions on aggregator’s liabilities that were in MVAG 2020, do not survive this core principle of the MVAG 2025. The phrase is straight out of the neoliberal economic grammar, but this ‘lightness’ is heavily skewed. It is light only for the aggregator; for the worker, it is weightier. In treating safety, welfare, and social security as marginal obligations rather than central pillars, MVAG 2025 departs from even the modest equity considerations of its predecessor.

It is still unclear whether State governments will fully adopt these Guidelines, push back against them, or try to work around them. But if they are adopted without change, there is a danger of allowing a system where the ease of the aggregators’ business is valued more than the basic rights and dignity of the people who work for them. To give full effect to the fundamental rights of the workers and ensure enforceability, other States, on the lines of the Karnataka law and over it, must soon initiate serious efforts towards a comprehensive law for platform workers, recognizing them as workers, according them minimum wages, registration, regulated working conditions, and social security.